It’s too late to help the environment. Even if humans feel off the face of the Earth, it would still be impoverished.
Norman Myers, Visiting Fellow of Green College at Oxford University, Senior Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund, 1997 (Biodiversity II, edited by Marjorie Reaka-Kudla and E. O. Wilson, p. 135-6)
While formulating our responses to the mass extinction crisis, we need to bear in mind the length of time still available to us. The critical criterion for our efforts is not
whether we are doing far more than before, but whether it will be enough—and that in turn raises the question of “enough by when?” How soon might we cross a threshold after which our best efforts could prove to be of little avail? Of course, not all habitats are going to be destroyed outright within the immediate future. But that is hardly the point. What looks set to eliminate many if not most species in the long run will be the “fragmentation effect,” i.e., the break up of extensive habitats into small isolated patches that are too small to maintain their stocks of species into the indefinite future. This phenomenon has been widely analyzed through the theory of island biogeography, and appears to be strongly supported through abundant empirical evidence, albeit with a good number of variations on the general theme. True, the process of ecological equilibriation, with its delayed fall-out effects, will take an extended period to exert its full depletive impact; in some instances, it will be decades and even centuries before species eventually disappear. But the ultimate upshot, which is what we should be primarily concerned with, will be the same.
Consider the environmental degradation that already has occurred. Through dynamic inertia, it will continue to exert an increasingly adverse effect for a good way into the future, no matter how vigorously we try to resist the process: much potential damage is already “in the pipeline.” An obvious example is acid rain, which will keep on inflicting injury on biotas by reason of pollutants already deposited though not yet causing apparent harm. Similarly, tropical forests will suffer desiccation through climatic changes induced by deforestation that already has taken place. Desertification will keep on expanding its impact through built-in momentum. Ozone-destroying CFCs now in the atmosphere will continue their work for a whole century even if we were to cease releasing them forthwith. There is enough global warming in store through past emissions of greenhouse gases to cause significant climatic change no matter how much we seek to slow it, let alone halt it. In light of this on-going degradation of the biosphere, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that in the year 2000 the whole of humankind were to be removed from the face of the Earth in one fell swoop. Because of the many environmental perturbations already imposed, with their impacts persisting for many subsequent decades, gross biospheric impoverishment would continue and thus serve to eliminate further large numbers of species in the long term (Myers, 1990b).
Threats to biodiversity overexaggerate and lack importance in the face of new innovation.
Julian L. Simon, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Maryland, College Park, 2/16/1998 (The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/)
<< The Global 2000 forecast extraordinary losses of species between 1980 and 2000. "Extinctions of plant and animal species will increase dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of species -- perhaps as many as 20 percent of all species on earth -- will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish, especially in tropical forests," it said.
Yet the data on the observed rates of species extinction are wildly at variance with common belief, and do not provide support for the various policies suggested to deal with the purported dangers. Furthermore, recent scientific and technical advances - - especially seed banks and genetic engineering, and perhaps electronic mass-testing of new drugs -- have rendered much less crucial the maintenance of a particular species of plant life in its natural habitat than would have been the case in earlier years. >>
Species lower every day with or without the aff and we are still here.
Julian L. Simon, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Maryland, College Park, 2/16/1998 (The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/)
<<Let us suppose that, as a consequence of this man-handling of natural environments, the final one-quarter of this century witnesses the elimination of l million species--a far from unlikely prospect. This would work out, during the course of 25 years, at an average extinction rate of 40,000 species per year, or rather over l00 species per day. The greatest exploitation pressures will not be directed at tropical forests and other species-rich biomes until towards the end of the period. That is to say, the l990s could see many more species accounted for than the previous several decades. But already the disruptive processes are well underway, and it is not unrealistic to suppose that, right now, at least one species is disappearing each day. By the late l980s we could be facing a situation where one species becomes extinct each hour. >>
It’s too late to help the environment. Even if humans feel off the face of the Earth, it would still be impoverished.
Norman Myers, Visiting Fellow of Green College at Oxford University, Senior Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund, 1997 (Biodiversity II, edited by Marjorie Reaka-Kudla and E. O. Wilson, p. 135-6)While formulating our responses to the mass extinction crisis, we need to bear in mind the length of time still available to us. The critical criterion for our efforts is not
whether we are doing far more than before, but whether it will be enough—and that in turn raises the question of “enough by when?” How soon might we cross a threshold after which our best efforts could prove to be of little avail? Of course, not all habitats are going to be destroyed outright within the immediate future. But that is hardly the point. What looks set to eliminate many if not most species in the long run will be the “fragmentation effect,” i.e., the break up of extensive habitats into small isolated patches that are too small to maintain their stocks of species into the indefinite future. This phenomenon has been widely analyzed through the theory of island biogeography, and appears to be strongly supported through abundant empirical evidence, albeit with a good number of variations on the general theme. True, the process of ecological equilibriation, with its delayed fall-out effects, will take an extended period to exert its full depletive impact; in some instances, it will be decades and even centuries before species eventually disappear. But the ultimate upshot, which is what we should be primarily concerned with, will be the same.
Consider the environmental degradation that already has occurred. Through dynamic inertia, it will continue to exert an increasingly adverse effect for a good way into the future, no matter how vigorously we try to resist the process: much potential damage is already “in the pipeline.” An obvious example is acid rain, which will keep on inflicting injury on biotas by reason of pollutants already deposited though not yet causing apparent harm. Similarly, tropical forests will suffer desiccation through climatic changes induced by deforestation that already has taken place. Desertification will keep on expanding its impact through built-in momentum. Ozone-destroying CFCs now in the atmosphere will continue their work for a whole century even if we were to cease releasing them forthwith. There is enough global warming in store through past emissions of greenhouse gases to cause significant climatic change no matter how much we seek to slow it, let alone halt it. In light of this on-going degradation of the biosphere, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that in the year 2000 the whole of humankind were to be removed from the face of the Earth in one fell swoop. Because of the many environmental perturbations already imposed, with their impacts persisting for many subsequent decades, gross biospheric impoverishment would continue and thus serve to eliminate further large numbers of species in the long term (Myers, 1990b).
Threats to biodiversity overexaggerate and lack importance in the face of new innovation.
Julian L. Simon, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Maryland, College Park, 2/16/1998 (The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/)<< The Global 2000 forecast extraordinary losses of species between 1980 and 2000. "Extinctions of plant and animal species will increase dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of species -- perhaps as many as 20 percent of all species on earth -- will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish, especially in tropical forests," it said.
Yet the data on the observed rates of species extinction are wildly at variance with common belief, and do not provide support for the various policies suggested to deal with the purported dangers. Furthermore, recent scientific and technical advances - - especially seed banks and genetic engineering, and perhaps electronic mass-testing of new drugs -- have rendered much less crucial the maintenance of a particular species of plant life in its natural habitat than would have been the case in earlier years. >>
Species lower every day with or without the aff and we are still here.
Julian L. Simon, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Maryland, College Park, 2/16/1998 (The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/)<<Let us suppose that, as a consequence of this man-handling of natural environments, the final one-quarter of this century witnesses the elimination of l million species--a far from unlikely prospect. This would work out, during the course of 25 years, at an average extinction rate of 40,000 species per year, or rather over l00 species per day. The greatest exploitation pressures will not be directed at tropical forests and other species-rich biomes until towards the end of the period. That is to say, the l990s could see many more species accounted for than the previous several decades. But already the disruptive processes are well underway, and it is not unrealistic to suppose that, right now, at least one species is disappearing each day. By the late l980s we could be facing a situation where one species becomes extinct each hour. >>